Marc Lynch on Security vs. Political Correctness

Since his name was first released, there has been a series of questions underlying commentary
on alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan: to what
extent did religion influence the shooting? Was Muslim extremism involved? What to make of his exchanges with a radical imam? Should investigators have more aggressively investigated
Hasan's rhetoric? Many pundits are debating whether
political correctness--fear of looking racist for singling out a
Muslim-American--deterred a response that could have stopped the
shooting.

But Marc Lynch of Foreign Policy calls out and rejects the emerging narrative. He summarizes the conventional wisdom: "American security... demands dropping the 'political
correctness' of avoiding a confrontation with Islamist ideas and
asking the 'tough questions' about Islam as a religion and the loyalty
of Muslim-Americans." But he argues, "This framing of the issue is almost 100% wrong." Lynch explains:

The grand strategy of al-Qaeda and its affiliated ideologues is, and
has always been, to generate a clash of civilizations between Islam and
the West which does not currently exist. Their great challenge is that
the vast majority of Muslims reject their theology, ideology, strategy
and tactics. That's especially true of American Muslims. They
therefore feel the need to change the environment in which Muslims live
in order to change their calculations about the appropriateness of
extremist identities and ideologies and actions. [...]

A lot of people -- some well-meaning, some clowns or worse --
evidently want the American response to the Ft. Hood shootings to
revive the post-9/11 "war of ideas" and "clash of civilizations"
anti-Islamic discourse. It's a jihad, they shout, demanding careful
scrutiny of the loyalty of American Muslims. That's what they seem to
mean by the demand to throw away "political correctness" and confront
the ideological menace. The overall effect of their recommendations,
however, would be to revive the flagging al-Qaeda brand and to greatly
strengthen the appeal of its narrative. And that's exactly what we
should not want.

Lynch teased out what has since become a dominant
theme in discussion over Hasan. The idea that America must choose between religious tolerance of Muslims and a
security-minded abolition of "political correctness" is flat-out false, he says. As Lynch reminds us, terrorists would like nothing more than for America to get tough on its Muslim population. As Lynch concedes, he could be wrong about Hasan's motives.
But the long-term security importance of the freedoms of
American Muslims is worth keeping in mind.

News reports are focusing on the Germanwings pilot's possible depression, following a familiar script in the wake of mass killings. But the evidence shows violence is extremely rare among the mentally ill.